Summer Newsletter

In this issue >>>

A Weekly Insight into MMS Summer Enrichment Camp 2013

SPACE IS THE PLACE

Students enjoy hanging

out in their space ship.

Beginner’s Play Ball!

Little Scientists

Space is the Place

Woodworking

Summer Olympics

Week Two: 17 June - 21 June 2013

Issue

TWO 2013

Science at “the hop”!

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Beginner’s Play Ball!

Play Ball! Camp in the Little

House was lots of fun this week.

The students explored different

sports through work in the

classroom, had a dress-up day,

made football rice krispy treats,

and completed a baseball art

project. The week concluded

with splash day and the students

learned about water sports.

There were many sports books

in the classroom to read, and

the students learned the song,

"Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

The students tried throwing a

football, kicking a soccer ball,

and shooting a basket with a

basketball.

Ms. Crystal Sorrow and Ms. Christina Wegner Ms. Summer Pitt and Ms. Ursula Hagood

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Little Scientists

This week our campers became “Little Sci-

entists”!

On Monday, we learned that the word science

comes from the Latin word “scientia” and

means acquiring knowledge. The children

were cute when they asked, “What does

knowledge mean”? A perfect lead into ex-

plaining the many different fields of science

and that science does not just mean performing

experiments. We talked about some of the

many different areas of science: Natural

Sciences (i.e., Anatomy, Botany, Zoology

and Marine Biology) as well as Chemistry,

Physics (i.e., Astronomy) and Earth Science

(i.e., Geology and Oceanography).

The children learned their “Cosmic Address”,

starting from an atom, child, Millhopper Mon-

tessori, Gainesville, Florida, United States,

North America, Earth, Solar System and the

Milky Way. We also talked about what As-

tronomy is and what types of instruments and

equipment an Astronomer might use in this

occupation.

We also were able to learn about Electricity

and magnets while talking about the Thun-

der and Lightning we have all too frequent-

ly here in Florida! The children were fasci-

nated to see how the positive and negative

aspects of magnets work. The children now

have a little better idea of what causes that all

that thunder and lightning!

Here are some additional activities we did

this week that you can also do at home:

Jet Propulsion Experiment: Balloon Jet: you

will need some twine, a balloon, a straw, tape

and we used the back of two chairs. Thread

the twine through the straw; tie the twine on

the back of two chairs to create a path for the

balloon to travel; blow up the balloon and

while holding the neck of the balloon tape the

balloon to the straw. Let go of the neck of the

balloon. A stream of air jets backward and

produces thrust. This propels the balloon for-

ward along the string at high speed. This

demonstrates that a jet engine produces thrust

from a roaring jet of super-hot gas. The gas

moving in one direction produces thrust in the

other direction.

A Rubbery Egg: “A box without hinges, key

or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid”, a

favorite riddle from “The Hobbit”. The an-

swer is, an egg; the largest cell in the world

(held by the ostrich)! So what can we do with

an egg that is science-like and fun? Dissolve

the shell with a mild acid (vinegar) and turn

the insides to a rubbery substance. We put a

raw egg into a tall drinking glass (or jar) and

covered the egg with vinegar. We let it soak

overnight and then the next morning we made

some observations – a lot of foam and bubbles.

We then rinsed the egg and then poured more

vinegar into the jar, covering the egg. You

optimally want to wait about 6 days; then rinse

the egg and rinse it off. You should notice

that it feels different, that it is missing the shell

and has a strange rubbery feel to it. Your egg

will even bounce from a few inches!

Why does this happen? The shell is made of

calcium carbonate. When you mix acetic acid

(vinegar) with the same “carbonate” as baking

soda you create a reaction. The little bubbles

we see are made of carbon dioxide gas. The

shell dissolves and the vinegar penetrates the

semi-permeable membrane (called “osmosis”)

and slightly inflates the egg and “pickles” the

egg, by hardening it up. This process allows

you to bounce the egg on the counter, roll it

along the floor, etc.

During this experiment we were also able to

talk about the concept of why some object

float and others sink.

We saved our favorite two experiments for the

end of the week: the Eruption of a Volcano

and Ice Sculptures with Salt and Liquid

Watercolors. For our Volcano eruption, I

have a papier-mâché volcano that I made many

years ago. We first talked about volcanos and

why they erupt. I then used baking soda, red

food coloring and added vinegar to create an

erupting volcano! The children are always

excited and fascinated to see what a miniature

volcano looks like! Ice Sculptures with Salt

and Liquid Watercolors: to create this ex-

periment you need to first make a block of ice

(I froze water in a milk carton). Place the ice

in a baking dish and let your child sprinkle salt

(I used coarse sea salt first then table salt).

Then we added dropperfuls of liquid watercol-

ors on top of the salt covered ice. As the salt

melts crevasses and tunnels through the ice the

paint makes the tunnels more visible. The

children learn that salt melts ice at a lower

temperature while creating a very colorful

(while temporary!) piece of artwork!

The children seemed to really enjoy all the

simple experiments. I invite you to do some

of these at home as well as to the many web-

sites that have safe and fun science experi-

ments and activities to do with young chil-

dren! There are so many experiments and

science-related activities you can do with

your children; they are fun and inexpen-

sive! I hope that this week has continued

to excite the children to explore this won-

derful world in which we live!

Tuesday, the children met Mr. Tim McCarthy

from Nature Art in High Springs. He showed

the children how creative they can be and in-

spired the children to create a masterpiece of

their own. Many of the children wanted to do

artwork to be transferred onto a t-shirt. Our

class decided to use watercolors because of

their vibrant color for their pieces of artwork.

The children are now excitedly waiting to see

their work on a t-shirt!

The children looked forward all week to

Splash Day! We had a wonderful time and

we are looking forward to “Back to Bed-

rock” next week (theme will include dino-

saurs).

Have a nice weekend!

Ms. Elizabeth and Ms. Jessica

Ms. Elizabeth Falls and Ms. Jessica Pytko

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It’s been a

great week

in wood-

working

camp.

Each stu-

dent has

taken mate-

rials and

built a step

stool, a bird

house and

a small hat/

tool rack. During the week

we also spent a lot of time

working with tools. Differ-

ent stations were set up for

the students to practice

using many hand tools and

improving their carpentry

skills. Once finished, the

carpenters then became

painters and carefully

painted each project with

the guidance of Ms. Rasha.

We were very fortunate to

have Dr. Mark Clark come

to school with his portable

saw mill and give us a

presentation on how a log

gets cut down into usable

lumber. He used a beauti-

ful cherry tree to cut for

our camp. We thank him

very much for taking time

out of his schedule to

come show us how this

process is done. We hope

the students learned a lot

and enjoyed the camp.

Keep building!!

Woodworking Mr. Richard Aslanian, Ms. Susan Salvatore, Ms. Rasha Choudar

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Woodworking

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Olympics/Wild World of Sports

Coach Cam Parker and Ms. Samantha Mink

(You must hum the Olympic theme while reading this.) Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you the 2013 MMS

Olympic contestants. Representing South Korea are Anthony, Charlotte, Kaitlyn and Venu. Hailing from Zimbabwe

we have Andrew, Aqua, Madumati and Sarah. Finally, traveling all the way from Somalia are Alyssa, DJ, Eduardo

and Ms. Sam.

These three teams have competed in a cornucopia of athletic, artistic and flat out fun events in an attempt to

win medals as an individual and as a team. Campers were asked to learn about their countries and participated in a

trivia contest for team medals. See what interesting facts your child knows about their ‘home’, or if they can tell you

of the Olympic rings. A newfound understanding of appreciation for the real Olympics was created and fun was had

by all!

Coach Cam

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Five, Four, Three, Two, One...BLAST

OFF!!! This week campers in the Space

Is THE Place camp have traveled the

universe exploring fun facts about outer

space. We have created alien masks,

water blotted our Earth, and push

pinned and painted the galaxy while

exploring outer space.

On Monday we had a special guest

speaker, Mr. James Albury, from the

Santa Fe College Planetarium come to

visit bringing in an actual meteor for the

children to touch and explore. We set

up cones and lined up out on the field

representing the distance between our

planets and then watched an episode of

his PBS series Star Gazers. Our camp-

ers were completely blown away by his

“movie star” status.

On Tuesday, special guest Tim

McCarthy of Nature Art came in to

work with the children on creating

their custom Space Camp T's. We can't

wait to see how they all turn out!

This Friday will be the first Splash Day

for our group! Campers are already SO

excited about the giant water slide!

Thank you so much for sharing your

children with this week. We have really

enjoyed seeing their sweet faces each

morning!

See you at camp!

Ms. Kyra, Ms. Rebecca & Ms. Widline

Space is the Place

Ms. Rebecca McCuller and Ms. Widline Senecharles

Ms. Kyra Akay and Ms. Kayleigh Bush

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8505 NW 39th Avenue

Imagine That!

Back to Bedrock!

Little Chefs

Mad Scientist

Aquatics

camp... Discover

Contact us at 352-375-6773 www.millhopper.com

In the next issue >>>

Tiffany and Ben work on editing their

summer camp news show.

“In Yo Face Productions.”

For past summer camp news show

visit:

www.millhoppertech.com

Click:

“In Yo Face Productions.”

at Millhopper Montessori School

Caryss works on this newsletter .

Thank you to our Junior Counselors for editing and designing the newsletter.

Lydia Black

Cristina de la Puerta

Caryss Baldwin

Tiffany Milian

Laura Clark